News

Keane is back in the black

MARTIN KEANE, a publican and hotelier who owns a chunk of Dublin’s Temple Bar, turned back into the black last year after a revaluation of some of his trading businesses.

Accounts signed off last month for Drayton House Holdings show the group delivered a pre-tax profit of €2.57m for the 12 months to the end of February 2012. That compared with a pre-tax loss of €966,842 a year earlier.

Group operating profit rose from €1.67m to €1.88m.

Drayton, which Keane owns with his wife Vera, had shareholders’ funds of €23m at the end of the financial year.

Turnover in Keane’s group was marginally up by 0.5% to nearly €10.8m.

Martina Keane, the financial controller and Keane’s daughter, said it will “at least be the same” for the year to February 2013. “We are hoping for an overall improvement,” she said. “We’ve grown the rate in Blooms hotel, which had been